Meggie gave in, the enormity of her relief showing in the way she sat, loosely now, relaxed. "The distance in his eyes. That's what I notice myself most of all. Is it so obvious? Does everyone know, Mum?" "Of course not," said Fee positively. "People don't look any further than the color of the eyes, the shape of the nose, the general build. Like enough to Luke's. I knew because I'd been watching you and Ralph de Bricassart for years. All he had to do was crook his little finger and you'd have gone running, so a fig for your "it's against the laws of the Church" when it comes to divorce. You were panting to break a far more serious law of the Church than the one about divorce. Shameless, Meggie, that's what you were. Shameless!" A hint of hardness crept into her voice. "But he was a stubborn man. His heart was set on being a perfect priest; you came a very bad second. Oh, idiocy! It didn't do him any good, did it? It was only a matter of time before something happened." Around the corner of the veranda someone dropped a hammer, and let fly with a string of curses; Fee winced, shuddered. "Dear heaven, I'll be glad when they're done with the screening!" She got back to the subject. "Did you think you fooled me when you wouldn't have Ralph de Bricassart to marry you to Luke? 1 knew. You wanted him as the bridegroom, not as the officiating cleric. Then when he came to Drogheda before he left for Athens and you weren't here, I knew sooner or later he'd have to go and find you. He wandered around the place as lost as a little boy at the Sydney Royal Easter Show. Marrying Luke was the smartest move you made, Meggie. As long as he knew you were pining for him Ralph didn't want you, but the minute you became somebody else's he exhibited all the classical signs of the dog in the manger. Of course he'd convinced himself that his attachment to you was as pure as the driven snow, but the fact remained that he needed you. You were necessary to him in a way no other woman ever had been, or I suspect ever will be. Strange," said Fee with real puzzlement. "I always wondered what on earth he saw in you, but I suppose mothers are always a little blind about their daughters until they're too old to be jealous of youth. You are about Justine, the same as I was about you."
She leaned back in her chair, rocking slightly, her eyes half closed, but she watched Meggie like a scientist his specimen.
"Whatever it was he saw in you," she went on, "he saw it the first time he met you, and it never left off enchanting him. The hardest thing he had to face was your growing up, but he faced it that time he came to find you gone, married. Poor Ralph! He had no choice but to look for you. And he did find you, didn't he? I knew it when you came home, before Dane was born. Once you had Ralph de Bricassart it wasn't necessary to stay any longer with Luke." "Yes," sighed Meggie, "Ralph found me. But it didn't solve anything for us, did it? I knew he would never be willing to give up his God. It was for that reason I was determined to have the only part of him I ever could. His child. Dane."
"It's like listening to an echo," Fee said, laughing her rusty laugh. "You might be me, saying that."
"Frank?"
The chair scraped; Fee got up, paced the tiles, came back and stared hard at her daughter. "Well, well! Tit for tat, eh, Meggie? How long have you known?"
"Since I was a little girl. Since the time Frank ran away."
"His father was married already. He was a lot older than me, an important politician. If I told you his name, you'd recognize it. There are streets named for him all over New Zealand, a town or two probably. But for the purpose, I'll call him Pakeha. It's Maori for "white man," but it'll do. He's dead now, of course. I have a trace of Maori blood in me, but Frank's father was half Maori. It showed in Frank because he got it from both of us. Oh, but I loved that man! Perhaps it was the call of our blood, I don't know. He was handsome. A big man with a mop of black hair and the most brilliant, laughing black eyes. He was everything Paddy wasn't cultured, sophisticated, very charming. I loved him to the point of madness. And I thought I'd never love anyone else; I wallowed in that delusion so long I left it too late, too late!" Her voice broke. She turned to look at the garden. "I have a lot to answer for, Meggie, believe me." "So that's why you loved Frank more than the rest of us," Meggie said. "I thought I did, because he was Pakeha's son and the rest belonged to Paddy," She sat down, made a queer, mournful noise. "So history does repeat itself. I had a quiet laugh when I saw Dane, I tell you."
"Mum, you're an extraordinary woman!"
"Am I?" The chair creaked; she leaned forward. "Let me whisper you a little secret, Meggie. Extraordinary or merely ordinary, I'm a very unhappy woman. For one reason or another I've been unhappy since the day I met Pakeha. Mostly my own fault. I loved him, but what he did to me shouldn't happen to any woman. And there was Frank .... I kept hanging on to Frank, and ignoring the rest of you. Ignoring Paddy, who was the best thing ever happened to me. Only I didn't see it. I was too busy comparing him with Pakeha. Oh, I was grateful to him, and I couldn't help but see what a fine man he was . . . ." She shrugged. "Well, all that's past. What I wanted to say was that it's wrong, Meggie. You know that, don't you?"
"No, I don't. The way I see it, the Church is wrong, expecting to take that from her priests as well."
"Funny, how we always infer the Church is feminine. You stole a woman's man, Meggie, just as I did."
"Ralph had absolutely no allegiance to any woman, except to me. The Church isn't a woman, Mum. It's a thing, an institution."